Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
Artist The Flaming Lips
Genre Rock
Style Alternative Rock
Style Psychedelic Rock

There aren’t a lot of distractions in Oklahoma City—which helps explain how the area’s most prominent weirdos, The Flaming Lips, managed to release ten album between 1986’s Hear It Is and 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. But that statistic fails to fully measure the band’s proficiency. According to lead singer Wayne Coyne, the group was working on no fewer than three distinct projects while creating Yoshimi, including the country-leaning soundtrack to Okie Noodling—a documentary about men who catch giant catfish with their bare hands—and the synthesiser score to Coyne’s own self-directed full-length homage to 1950s sci-fi B movies, Christmas on Mars.

Those disparate efforts all played a role in the creation of Yoshimi, which Coyne once described as a “candy-coated potato chip” of an album. On Yoshimi, the western twang and martian bleeps meld with the maximalist space-rock the band had perfected on its previous album, The Soft Bulletin. That record secured the group’s place in the pantheon of consequential album artists, freeing the Lips from the one-hit-wonder tag that had clung to the group since 1993’s “She Don’t Use Jelly”.

Yoshimi found Coyne comfortably settling into middle age, complete with grey streaks in his signature long wavy hair. The outsider-artist posture he’d displayed in the 1980s was gone; he was now a seasoned seer, albeit one who still possessed the gift of childlike wonder. How did Yoshimi’s “Do You Realize??”—which reminds listeners that “happiness makes you cry” and “everyone you know someday will die”—end up in three national ad campaigns? Answer: Because while the lyrics are heavy, the brand managers felt safe, knowing Coyne was holding our hand as we embrace the existential crisis. If that’s not enough, the album’s first four songs tell the story of a young Japanese girl, Yoshimi, who’s staring down an army of robots—one of which is having an existential crisis of its own. When the fog of war clears, and Yoshimi comes to an end, the questions linger: Who was right, and who was wrong? Does free will exist? And, to quote Coyne, “Do you realise we’re floating in space?”

Tracklisting

  1. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
  2. Fight Test (4:14)
  3. One More Robot (4:59)
  4. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1 (4:46)
  5. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 2 (2:53)
  6. In The Morning Of The Magicians (6:19)
  7. Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell (4:34)
  8. Are You A Hypnotist?? (4:45)
  9. It’s Summertime (4:20)
  10. Do You Realize?? (3:33)
  11. All We Have Is Now (3:53)
  12. Approaching Pavonis Mons By Ballon (Utopia Planitia) (3:11)
  13. Demos+
  14. All My Life – Morning Of The Magicians (1:24)
  15. Ego Tripping Part 2 Or 3 (5:22)
  16. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2:58)
  17. Hypnotist: Early Version (5:10)
  18. Epic Systems Delirium (2:31)
  19. In The Morning Of The Magicians (4:02)
  20. Do You Realize?? (1st Chords Wayne) (3:59)
  21. Do You Realize?? (Steven New Part) (3:08)
  22. Fight Test: Primitive Demo With Helium Voice (3:41)
  23. If I Go Mad / Funeral In My Head (6:33)
  24. Syrtis Major (3:18)
  25. Non-LP+
  26. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Japanese Version) (4:57)
  27. Spongebob & Patrick Confront The Psychic Wall Of Energy (3:38)
  28. Seven Nation Army (2:51)
  29. Go (4:41)
  30. The Deterioration Of The Fight Or Flight Response (2:50)
  31. Fight Test (Live On WXRT, May 2nd, 2003) (2:43)
  32. Do You Realize?? (Live On CD 101) (3:39)
  33. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (AOL Session) (3:31)
  34. Waitin’ For A Superman (Live On WXPN) (4:18)
  35. In The Morning Of The Magicians (Live On KCRW) (3:58)
  36. White Christmas (Live On WXPN) (3:28)
  37. The Golden Path (4:47)
  38. Radio Sessions
  39. Suspicious Minds (Live On Cover-ed) (6:34)
  40. Assassination Of The Sun (4:25)
  41. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (Live On BBC Radio 1) (4:01)
  42. Do You Realize?? (Live On BBC Radio 1) (3:23)
  43. One More Robot (Live On BBC Radio 1) (3:54)
  44. Do You Realize?? (Live On KEXP) (3:39)
  45. One More Robot (Live On KEXP) (3:20)
  46. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (Live On KEXP) (4:08)
  47. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Live On KEXP) (3:19)
  48. Breathe (Live On XFM) (3:12)
  49. Ego Tripping At The Gates of Hell (Live On XFM) (3:26)
  50. Sunship Balloons (Live On XFM) (3:09)
  51. Radio Sessions+
  52. Fight Test (Live On XFM) (4:03)
  53. Thank You Jack White (Live On XFM) (4:18)
  54. Do You Realize?? (Live On XFM) (3:39)
  55. One More Robot (Live On XFM) (4:28)
  56. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (Live On XFM) (4:15)
  57. Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell (Live On BBC Radio 1) (3:50)
  58. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Live On BBC Radio 1) (3:22)
  59. Sunship Balloons (Live On BBC Radio 1) (3:16)
  60. Up Above The Daily Hum (4:10)
  61. Xanthe Terra (3:55)

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The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt 1 Official Music Video


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Release Information

Key Value
Wikipedia URL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshimi_Battles_the_Pink_Robots
Format Vinyl LP Reissue, Vinyl 4× LP Compilation, Box Set Album Deluxe Edition (20th Anniversary)
Label Warner Records
Catalog Number 093624 873051
Notes Left hand side opening slip-case box Includes 22-page booklet and fold-out poster. Records in individual sleeves with plain paper inners. On each side, initial “093624873051-A CB” string of the runout is etched, and the following “1245947 244215E1” string is stamped.
Discogs URL The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots